Why do we live in the Age of Jester (part 6 of 6)

6 min readAug 10, 2021

The latest concept in futurology.

Jester is just a jester

Once again I came across a discussion of HR specialists, where they routinely comb out sore spots: young people are no longer the same. “Millennials” are irresponsible, they have an overestimated indicator of conflict, today’s 20-year-olds are characterized by the psychological age of 5-year-olds. And in general, children have hyperactivity syndrome and low learning ability.

Young people who are “not like that” are not only senile grumbling. The processes of delaying the age of childhood really occur. After all, back in 1959, an associate of the founder of analytical psychology, Maria-Louise von Franz, said that there are a lot of people with a psychological complex puer aeternus (eternal child). And I see this as one of the signs of the era of the Jester archetype.

Many experts in the Pearson’s archetypes imagine as Jester someone like Chicot, played by A. Gorbunov in the Russian TV series “The Countess de Montsoreau”: clever, sarcastic, etc.

But in fact, we must remember that the original source of the Pearson’s archetypes is not even the concept of the hero’s journey by J. Campbell. And the famous monologue of Jacques from Shakespeare’s play “As you like it” also. Have you ever heard the phrase “The whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors”? It’s just from there, and no one has read further. And in vain.

The cover of the book “Goat Dereza” (by K. Petrov-Vodkin, 1924).

Because in this monologue, Jacques expounds the ancient concept of the 7 ages of man by Claudius Ptolemy. About old age, it says the following: the second infancy comes. So, Jester at the Pearson’s concept is both a baby and a distraught old man. And not the intellectual Chicot at all. In general, the state of the Jester archetype is both the beginning and the end of the cycle.

And since Jester is about childhood, we remember that the great Soviet pedagogy wrote about this age. She wrote that the leading activity in preschool age is a game (we keep in mind the boom of the gaming industry), etc. Jester is about a game. Not about a sharp mind, like Chicot’s, etc. It’s just about a game.

Therefore, the main distinguishing feature of the Age of Jester is the fact that everything is not real, but a game, imitation.

How to cancel the winter?

Naturally, specialists want to do something about it, because it can’t do that! How can we entrust the most important thing we have — civilization — to psychologically immature individuals? There are suggestions: let’s improve the environment, medicine, education, and let’s limit the use of computers in children’s life, etc.

This reminds me of the following: so people gathered and decided… to cancel the winter. The arguments are the most reasonable. It’s cold, you can’t walk. Bike paths are idle. You have to pay for heating. The cost of snow removal, for the purchase of warm clothes. You can’t swim in the river. In general, a consensus has been reached. They generate ideas.

One says: I noticed that before winter the bears go to their den. If you do not let the bears sleep, then theoretically there will be no winter.
Another says: no, before winter, the birds fly to warmer climes. But if the birds are restricted in moving, then there will definitely be no winter.
The third says: in fact, winter comes after the farmers dig up potatoes. We need to conduct an experiment to prevent it from being dug up. Maybe we won’t prevent winter in this way at all, but the average air temperature should, in theory, rise.

In general, the cancellation of winter is a very difficult task. But it will be much worse if it is possible to solve it. Because winter is needed. In winter, nature takes a break for rest. Winter tests the living for endurance, that is, for viability.

By analogy, the Age of Jester that has come, as well as the ages of Idealist, Realist and Warrior, which will be later — that is, all that is called the New Dark Ages — is winter for humanity. And it is needed for the same purposes.

For example, many books written in recent centuries will be lost, just as the famous Library of Alexandria was once lost. Only those without which there is literally no way will be saved. Is it a tragedy?

Go to the nearest bookstore and imagine that 95 % of the books sold there will be lost forever. Detective stories, fantasy, coaching, a horoscope for every day — and from all this splendor, only 5% will survive. Are you really sure that this will be an irreparable loss?

Conclusion

I’m so used to the topic already that I don’t want to finish, but it’s time. Because we have found the answer to all the questions that were at the beginning of this journey. I will remind them.

Question 1: Do archetypes occur in historical epochs in the same order as Pearson’s, or how?

Answer: yes, exactly in the same order.

Question 2: How, without falling into mysticism, can we explain that the behavior of large masses of people is influenced by a certain archetype?

Answer: first, we have already talked about such a phenomenon as mental epidemics. The fact that the famous Russian psychiatrist and physiologist V.M. Bekhterev singled out speculative epidemics among them, too. This means that I would certainly have attributed the ICO fever in 2017 to the number of epidemics. Consequently, humanity is still subject to mental epidemics, and it is not so rare. The mechanism of action of the archetype should be similar to the mechanism of occurrence of mental epidemics.

Secondly, we have shown that all transitions between epochs are absolutely logical. There is not a single example where the reasons for the change of epochs would look irrational.

It remains to explain only one thing: how did it happen that human history goes through the same stages of development as the mythological plot (such Epic of Gilgamesh)? Here I would like to recall such a forgotten term as “historical creativity”. It can be found, for example, in the works of such dissimilar people as V.I. Lenin and N.A. Berdyaev. And in Soviet times, the expression “historical creativity of the masses of the people” was often used; in 1989, Yu.I. Bokan defended his doctoral dissertation with this title.

In other words, there is a philosophical tradition that considers history as the same product of human creativity as literature. Therefore, it is probably not surprising that different types of creativity obey the same laws. Well, since art, as the American philosopher Susan Langer argued, is a way for a person to know his emotional life, it is quite expected that the products of creativity reflect the laws of the psyche.

Question 3: Does this mean that it is possible to make historical forecasts based on the Pearson concept? That is, the addition of psychology with history in this case really gives psychohistory, as in Isaac Asimov, or not?

Answer: not only is it possible, but I even tried to make one forecast — that in 2024 the flight of American astronauts to the Moon will not take place. Perhaps he was in a hurry. Watching the success with which the crew of the International Space Station tape up the cracks on board, I’m almost sure that these guys will get to Mars. With only a lasso and a a swear word.

In general, I will be only glad if my concept is not confirmed. Because knowing the future, on the one hand, is convenient. On the other hand, it creates a bad feeling of predestination. And since I said that history is also the result of creativity, then suddenly we or our contemporaries will be able to create something new? Nevertheless, creativity is creativity; you never know what patterns it has!